agree with you 100%. I've seen a few breakthrough infections, but usually in people who have gotten pfizer, and have a lot of comorbidities (and are older). I've told my elderly parents to go get a booster now. This variant is crazy. 95% of our patients in the ICU with COVID right now are not vaccinated.
Additionally, we are seeing a lot of post COVID thromboembolic events: stroke, PE, DVT. We have people who are being turned away for very necessary procedures as we are totally full and have no staff. It's important to note that the mandates on staffing have not hit yet, and people have not left yet because they haven't got "the jab". Management at the hospitals are working on exceptions for this, as we are already SO short staffed, ICU nurses are taking 3 patients at a time (completely unsafe).
We need the national guard to set up large tent hospitals, and ship the unvaccinated covid patients there to be taken care of. That way the hospitals can focus on the people who actually need treatment, and not spend hours a day talking to families over and over again. I spend 4+ hours a day trying to explain to families the fibrotic stages of ARDS and why their loved one will never return home. It's exhausting and time consuming, and takes me away from the care of patients who need me.
We have put off people who need surgeries, transplants, etc. Those cannot be safely done in a tent hospital, but it would be easy to have people on vents lined up, sedated, paralyzed and go down the line with proning teams. Care of the covid patient is generally straightforward unless they need dialysis, and now with many hospitals going to crisis care, that won't be happening anyway. The chance of recovery is <1% for an intubated patient, in the ICU, with kidney failure and severe hypoxemic respiratory failure due to COVID-19 pneumonia. I'm sure people will liken it to concentration camps - but we are getting desperate for help and space here folks. We are quickly running out of options.